May 28, 2008

Fear not, we're blessed.

Can't blame Jim Bowden for skipping out on a trip out West; instead, he's busy preparing for the First Year Player Draft by brushing up on his greatest overstatements of all time about [insert name of potential draft pick here] by comparing him to [insert name of Hall of Famer here], AND reminding his bosses about how they've agreed to spend the money (via Nationals dot com):

"We [draft the best] player. That's what we've done since I've gotten here, and it's all we're going to do," Bowden said. "High school, college, junior college -- it doesn't matter. Now, injury plays a factor. Sign-ability plays a factor. We're blessed that we're an organization where, if it gets late and there's an unsigned [guy who should have been a late] first-round pick, we have support from our ownership and our president to take that player and sign him. We're not afraid to do that. They are committed to building the organization the right way. It takes patience -- and we're all seeing it at this level -- but it takes backing."..."Winning and losing in the Minor Leagues doesn't matter," he said. "It's the prospects. What is exciting is when I get a call from a GM [last] week, [and] he likes eight players on our [Double-A] Harrisburg club and then raves about our [Class A] Hagerstown club. ... That's value. Even before they get [to the big leagues], that's trade value. It's pieces we have as leverage to go help our big league club win. We're not just going to develop them for us; we're going to trade some of them to get what we need to make this [club] better."

Here at the Nationals Enquirer, we don't know Buster Posey from Parker Posey, but we're encouraged by the gentle reminders by Jimbo to his bosses earlier today on Nationals dot com that a) they'll pony up the extra cash if necessary to sign "the best player" b) they're committed to building the organization in the "right way" c) he's definitely going to pull the trigger on a deal for Adam Dunn before the end of the season, and wants to remind the Lerners he'll need some of that aforementioned cash to sign him up to a Kearns-like deal after the fact to keep him around a few years.